


Unhappy families

by Tereshkova (EarthboundCosmonaut)



Series: Occasional flashes of competence [11]
Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Alien Conspiracies, Anxiety, Bad Parenting, Bonus scene - gratuitious Lewis crossover, Bullying, Deleted Scenes, Gen, it's tough being a Murray
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-09 02:44:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16441514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthboundCosmonaut/pseuds/Tereshkova
Summary: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own wayA series of one shots from the perspectives of the Murray children, filling in some of the gaps inWhatever the lady wants. Because kids see everything, even if they can't always make sense of it.





	1. Ella's secrets

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Whatever the lady wants](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14203257) by [Tereshkova (EarthboundCosmonaut)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthboundCosmonaut/pseuds/Tereshkova). 



> When I finished _Occasional flashes of competence_ , I was left with folders of unused material. That included these scenes that I'd written from the perspectives of the Murray children. 
> 
> At one point, I considered writing each chapter of _Whatever the lady wants_ from the perspective of a different member of the Murray family. I got as far as writing some of the key scenes, but abandoned the idea because the fic would have ended up being so far removed from Malcolm and the goings on in Downing Street. However, I enjoyed re-reading them and thought some other people might too, so I'm tidying them up for publication as a kind of extras DVD to the series. I'll try to post one every couple of days for the next week.

"No, stop! I can't breathe properly."  

The hands pinning Ella's shoulders down don't loosen their grip. Blood is running from her nose into the back of her throat. She lifts her head and spits some of it out so that it doesn't choke her.  

"Eww!" squeals Britney. "She's got blood on me." There are indeed a few small splatters of blood on the sleeve Britney's school shirt. Rather less than has gushed down the front of her own. 

Jordan Daniels looms into view, grinning unpleasantly. "Her and her family talk all posh, but they're just trash really. My Mum says her dad's a sex pest." 

Jordan and her gang – Britney, Maddison and Kara – are the reason Ella's started sneaking out of school at the beginning of the last period of the afternoon. Ever since that article about Dad was published, they've made it their mission to torment her. Finally, desperate to avoid having to run the gauntlet on her way home, she'd started leaving school early and killing time on Hampstead Heath. For almost two weeks, she's made it home unmolested.  Today, her luck has run out.

They'd been waiting for her just inside the gate to the heath, and it seems Jordan wants to make up for lost time. Her backpack has already been raided and tossed to one side, her blazer is dangling from a nearby tree, and her nose hasn't stopped bleeding since Maddison bashed it with her elbow when they were wrestling her to the ground. 

Ella looks around desperately. They’re near one of the paths that criss-crosses the heath, on a patch of open ground. Surely someone will come by soon – a jogger or a dog walker. But there's no one. Just her, Jordan, Britney, Maddison and Kara. 

"My mum said her dad can lick champagne off her any day," says Kara, giggling. "She says he's well fit – like a dirty Hugh Grant." 

"Your mum's a slapper," Maddison tells her, earning herself a glare from Kara. 

"She'd probably catch something from him," says Jordan, stepping closer to Ella. 

Ella swallows a mouthful of blood and takes a gasping breath. "Please let me go," she implores.  

Jordan is unmoved. "You think you're better than us," she says, straddling Ella's thighs so that she is sitting on top of her, sneering down into her face. "But you're _nothing_. You're going to turn out a criminal like your dad - or a freeloader like your mum." 

"My Mum's not a freeloader! She works really hard." 

"It should be your mum that gets sacked, not Mr Stone," Jordan tells her, reaching for something from her pocket. 

"That wasn't her fault!" 

"No, it was _your_ fault." Jordan pulls out a marker pen. "Hold her still," she instructs the other girls. 

"Stop!" begs Ella, pushing against the three pairs of hands holding her down. "Please just leave me alone!" 

"Shut up," Britney tells her, digging her fingers cruelly into Ella's shoulder. "No one cares about you." 

Ella glances around, desperately hoping for a passerby to call out to, but there's still nobody. Jordan is writing on her shirt. She looks down and sees SKANK scrawled across her front in big black letters.  

Jordan sits back, admiring her handiwork. "What else shall I put?" she asks the others. 

Ella coughs, a fine spray of red blooming out of her mouth. She has to get away. She manages to work her right leg free and plants her foot firmly against Jordan’s stomach, pushing her away as hard as she can. Jordan staggers back, winded, clutching her tummy. The hands on Ella’s shoulders loosen a little as the others react in surprise, and it’s all the opening she needs to wriggle out of their grasp. She scrambles to her feet and sets off at a run. 

“Don’t let her get away!” she hears Jordan gasp. “She’s going to pay for this!” 

“Get her!” Maddison shouts.  

She can’t let them catch her. Now that she’s kicked Jordan, they’ll want to hurt her back. She veers away from the path and surges up the hill towards a thicket. She’s a good runner – she’d been on the cross country team in her old school. If she can get under the cover of trees, she might be able to either lose them, or hide until they get fed up of looking for her.  

As she climbs, at times scrambling practically on all fours up the steep incline, the shouts behind her quieten, replaced by pants and gasps. When she reaches the treeline she risks a glance back over her shoulder. She’s gained at least fifty meters on the leader of the pack – Kara – and Jordan is trailing way behind, still clutching her tummy. 

She hesitates for a moment. Should she go right – down the hill in the direction of home, but where she’ll have to run across the open grassland of the heath, or left, further uphill and into the trees, where she might be able to stretch out her lead and find somewhere to hide? 

“You’re so fucking dead, you posh skank!” yells Maddison, and her mind is made up. She darts left, weaving through tree trunks as she sprints up the hill. Her breath is coming in heavy pants and her calves are on fire, but she knows she can keep going and she’s praying that the others can’t.  

She's so pumped with adrenaline that she doesn't even see the man until it's too late. She rounds a tree and he's there, blocking her path, and there's no time to dodge. Then she's flying towards the ground. It rises up to hit her with a bump that makes her teeth clack.  

"Fuck's sake!" the man shouts. Part of her brain registers that the deep, irritated tone of his voice is familiar, but the rest of it is too busy focusing on getting back on her feet again to waste effort trying to figure out where from. She's stopped from running by a strong hand clamping around her arm. "What the fuck are you doing, Ella?" 

She spins towards the speaker. "Dad!" 

He looks as surprised to see her as she feels at seeing him.  

There's a crashing of feet through undergrowth and they both turn to see Kara running up the slope towards them, breathing heavily and looking murderous. "I'm gonna smash your teeth in when I catch you, Ella Murray!" she shouts. A few meters behind her Maddison nods in agreement, although she's too out of breath from running to add any comment of her own. 

Dad steps out from behind the tree, placing a heavy hand on her shoulder. Ella's used to how massive her dad is, but Kara and Maddison have only seen him on the internet. They stop in their tracks in the face of the real thing, gazing up at him with open mouths.  

"If anyone's getting their teeth smashed in today, it won't be a Murray," he tells them. 

Maddison clutches at Kara's arm. They both look terrified. Panic loosens its grip on Ella a little. 

"What's going on?" demands Jordan, catching them up. But then she sees Dad and she too falls quiet. 

"You lot," says Dad, in the telling-off voice that used to make Tilly cry when she was little, "should be in school. Get out of my sight before I report the lot of you." 

She can see from the expressions on their faces that her pursuers don't dare contradict him. "Yes sir," says Kara, managing to find her voice. Jordan Daniels is, for once, speechless. Relief floods her body as she realises that she's really safe. 

"Well go on then," says Dad. 

Maddison, Kara and Jordan turn and run. She sees them meet Britney, still coming up the hill, and drag her along with them.  

"As for you," says Dad, squeezing her shoulder for emphasis, "I'll deal with you in a minute."

Her momentary relief fades.  

Dad turns and she realises there's another man with him. She doesn’t know his name, but she recognises him: he’s Jamal from year 9’s older brother. He sells drugs outside her school sometimes.  Jamal’s brother looks at her questioningly, like he doesn’t really want her to be there. 

“It’s all right,” Dad tells him, his hand still gripping Ella’s shoulder. “She’s my kid. And an absolute fucking disgrace,” he adds, looking over her stained uniform. 

She folds her arms so they can't read the writing on her shirt.  

Jamal’s brother nods. “Yea, I seen her aroun’. Din’ realise she yo’ kid tho. What she do wrong that you sent her to tha’ shithole?” 

“Don’t go there,” says Dad in the same irritated tone of voice that he often uses when he’s talking to Mum. 

He shrugs. “Alrigh’ man, no offense, yea? Listen – I gotta go – got business meetin’s. But you go’ my number, yea?” He holds out his hand, the sleeve of his hoodie pulled down low over his palm. 

“I’ll call you next week,” says Dad, shaking his hand, and Ella _sees_ them exchange something. 

Jamal’s brother grins. “See ya’ aroun’ Mr M. Bye Li'l M,” he adds, nodding at Ella. Then he saunters off in the direction of her school. 

Dad puts something from his right hand into his pocket. “What are you doing here?” he demands, turning to look at her properly. 

Her mouth is suddenly dry. She doesn’t say anything. 

His expression gets tight and hard. “Don’t tell me you’re bunking off school now? And fighting!” he adds, waving his hand towards the blood on her nose and chin. 

She jerks away, trying to wipe some of the blood away with her sleeve. “I wasn’t fighting. I didn’t start it.” 

“Well which is it?" he says impatiently. "You were or you weren’t? Either way, one of those sentences was a lie.” 

“ _I_ wasn’t fighting with _them_ ,” she says, trying to make him understand. “They were fighting with _me_. I didn’t want to fight, I just wanted them to leave me alone.” 

“Well it’s a bit late for that. If you didn't want to get into fights, you shouldn’t have started bullying your classmates.” 

“That only happened once!” she protests. “And it was months ago! I haven’t done anything since then.” She’s been too busy dodging flack for Mum getting Mr Stone sacked and that horrible story about Dad and the prostitutes. 

“You shouldn’t have started what you weren’t prepared to finish.” 

She feels tears prick in her eyes. How can he be so unfair when all this is partly his fault to start with? “What are you doing here?” she demands. “You’re meant to be at work and instead you’re on the heath buying drugs.” 

Dad grabs her shoulder and shoves her against a tree. She tries not to wince when the bark grazes her back. “That’s what you think you saw, is it?” he says, his eyes flashing. 

“Yes,” she insists, putting her hands on her hips. “That’s Jamal Smith’s brother. I know he sells drugs and I _saw_ him give you something. Which means you lied to Mum when you said you weren’t going to take any more drugs. And I’m going to tell her!” 

She glares at Dad, but he doesn’t glare back. His lip curls into a sneer. “Do you really think she’s going to believe a single word you say?” he says. “You’re skiving off school, you’ve been fighting, you’ve been telling lies–” he counts off his on his fingers. “You’ve got about as much credibility as an estate agent. So unless you want to land yourself in a whole heap of trouble,” he finishes, his tone becoming nasty, “I suggest you keep your ugly little mouth shut.” 

She hates him so much. Why can’t he just be nice, like other people’s dads? “It’s not me that’s lying! You’re—”  

The sting as he slaps her cheek shocks her in to silence. “You,” he says, bunching her shirt in his hand and pressing her against the tree, “are a nasty, scheming little liar. If you breathe a word about what you _think_ you saw to anyone, I will make sure your mother finds out exactly what you’ve been up to. And who do you think she’s going to believe: me or you?” 

Ella looks at his face, all twisted and angry. She wants to think Mum would believe her, but Dad’s got this way of talking to her so that she always ends up agreeing with him in the end. “You,” she admits quietly. 

Dad nods. “That’s right. And what do you think would happen if she found out you’ve been fighting and playing truant?” 

She doesn’t even need to think about the answer to this question - she still remembers Mum crying after the thing with the hair straighteners. “She’d be really upset.” 

He nods again. “So what are you going to do?” 

“Not say anything,” she whispers, unable to look him in the eye. 

“Good girl,” says Dad, releasing her shirt. “Jesus, you’re a mess,” he adds, looking her up and down again. “Where’s your blazer? And your school bag?” 

Ella shrugs. She’d abandoned them as lost when she’d managed to get away from Jordan and Maddison.

“Well I’m not buying you a new one,” he says, “and you’re not coming home looking like that, so you’d better bloody find them.” 

She looks up at him pleadingly. “But Dad, what if they’re still waiting for me?” 

Now it’s his turn to shrug. “You’ve made your bed Ella, now it’s time fo you to lie in it.”  

She watches his back as he walks away from her. Tears roll down her cheeks and she swipes them away angrily. He’s horrible! She wishes Mum could see it, but she never does. She always makes excuses for him: it’s as though she doesn’t want to see what he’s really like. 

Slowly, dragging her feet, she makes her way back towards the treeline. She can’t see Jordan and the others, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not hiding in wait for her. She’d kicked Jordan really hard, and she’s going to want revenge. She can't risk going back to look for her bag and blazer yet. 

She walks back into the thicket and finds a tree that she can climb. Her stomach rumbles as she settles back against the trunk, and she presses her hands against it. She hasn’t eaten since breakfast and she’s starving. Tears roll down her cheeks again, and this time she doesn’t wipe them away. She wishes Mum were here. Even if she can’t tell her what’s going on, at least she could have a cuddle. But Mum’s away, working in Leeds; it’s just them and Dad tonight.  

Ella bites down on her hand to stop herself from sobbing.


	2. It's all Tilly's fault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of the things that didn't get explored so much in the final version of _Whatever the lady wants_ is the different ways that the children - particularly the younger children - make sense of Nicola and James' relationship. Tilly's fear about being separated from Nicola (which was inspired by Rebecca Front's account of a similar experience in childhood) is touched on, but its origins aren't really explained. This scene gives more insight into where that magical thinking came from.

It's all Tilly's fault. She didn't mean for it to happen, but it did: she broke the wedding figurine, and then she lied about it, and now - because of her - everything is broken.  

She was trying to help. Daddy had asked her to bring him a beer while he and Josh were watching cricket, and she wanted to put it in the Universities Rugby League Champions 1985 glass because it's his favourite. But it was on a high shelf and she couldn't reach very well, so when she was getting it down she knocked the figurine onto the floor. It's the porcelain bride and groom that were on Mummy and Daddy's wedding cake. Tilly's always loved it: the bride is dressed like a princess in a pillowy white dress, and she looks like Mummy except that her hair isn't as bushy. The groom is holding her hand and they are smiling at each other. Except they are not any more.  

She watches as - almost in slow motion - the ornament tumbles onto the slate floor of the kitchen. The bride hits the ground first and shatters, fragments of her white dress spreading out across the tiles like confetti. The groom fares slightly better, fracturing into four pieces. His face is still more or less intact, and his right hand is still attached to what little is left of the bride's left arm. 

Tilly jumps at the crash of porcelain on slate, and presses her fingers to her mouth to stop herself from screaming. Katie comes into the kitchen while she's trying to clean up the mess. "What's happened, Munchkin?" she says, and then "Oh whoops, man down," when she sees the broken figurine. 

"I'm sorry," says Tilly, putting the broken pieces on a piece of newspaper like Mummy always does when something sharp gets broken. 

"It doesn't matter," she says, kneeling down to help. "What is it, a cup?" 

Tilly bites her lip. It must be broken really badly if Katie can't even tell. "No, it's the bride and groom from Mummy and Daddy's wedding cake." 

Katie pulls a face. "Oh, that. Never mind, it was really tacky anyway – Mum hates it." 

"But it was a present from Great Aunt Margaret."  

"Oh," says Katie, sitting back on her heels. "I didn't realise it was Great Aunt Margaret's." 

Great Aunt Margaret was Daddy's favourite relative. He stayed with her when he was on holiday from boarding school because Grandma and Grandpa lived in Saudi Arabia and it was too hot for little boys. He always says she was like a second mother to him. "Do you think we can glue it back together again?" she asks. 

Katie shakes her head. "Nope, it's good and dead." 

Tilly's been trying not to cry, but now she feels like she will. "I'll have to tell Daddy." 

"No Munchkin," Katie says, putting her arm around her. "I don’t think that's a very good idea." 

"But he'll be really mad." 

"I know, that's why it's not a very good idea. Look, he probably won't even notice it's broken for ages. If he asks what happened to it, I'll say I did it." 

"But that's a lie," says Tilly. You're not meant to tell lies; Mummy says you always get in less trouble if you tell the truth than if you tell a lie. 

Katie sighs. "I know, but the only person who will get in trouble for it is me and I don't mind. It's not fair for you to get shouted at over an accident." 

Tilly's not at all sure it works like that: you can't just let someone take the blame - even if they offer - because that's still lying. But she really doesn't want Daddy to be cross at her. Daddy gets cross with her a lot - he says she needs to toughen up and stop being so sensitive. He hasn't been cross as much recently though; he's been playing with her and Josh, and it's been fun. She wants things to stay like that. 

"Don't worry so much, Munchkin," says Katie, ruffling her hair. "It'll be fine." 

"I think maybe I should just tell-" she starts to say, but then Daddy comes into the kitchen. 

"What's taking so long, Tils?" he says. "England have taken two wickets since I asked you for a beer." 

"You forgot to tip the bar staff," says Katie, standing up and pushing the sheet of newspaper with the broken porcelain on it under the kitchen table with her foot. 

Daddy laughs the strange pretend laugh that he uses with Katie and Ella. "You pay peanuts, you get monkeys I guess." 

"Exactly," says Katie in a not-very-friendly voice. "She''ll be through in a minute." 

"Don't take too long, Tils," says Daddy. "My throat's dryer than the Sahara." 

Katie glares at the door and says " _tosser_ " under her breath. "All right, why don't you take him this before he chokes on his own ego," she says, pouring beer into a normal glass and giving it to Tilly. "I'll finish cleaning up." 

Tilly is still wondering whether she should tell Daddy what she's done when she gives him his beer. He says "Thanks mate" and gives her a one-armed hug and she doesn't want to make him angry with her, so she doesn't say anything. 

* * *

No one notices that the figurine is broken that evening, and Tilly begins to think that maybe it'll be all right. But when she goes to bed she has a dream. She dreams that the figurine is falling towards the kitchen floor, but it's not just a pair of little porcelain figures any more: it's Mummy and Daddy, frozen hand in hand on their wedding day. It hits the tiles and she watches as Mummy smashes into a thousand pieces – her face splintering into shards too small to even identify, never mind glue back together again. Daddy looks up at her, his hand still clutching what it left of Mummy's, and says "This is all your fault." 

She sits bolt upright in bed, her heart hammering in her ears. If she closes her eyes she can still see Mummy breaking apart and hear Daddy's accusing voice: _This is all your fault_  and she  _knows_ with absolute certainty that something terrible is going to happen, and it will be because of her. 

She jumps because she hears a door slamming open and Daddy's heavy footsteps on the landing. "Get out of the way," she hears him saying, "I can't talk to you at the moment." 

Then there's Mummy's voice, quieter and urgent, "James! We need to talk about this." 

They're arguing again. They haven't argued in months.  _This is all your fault_. She creeps out of bed and onto the landing, peering down through the banisters.  

Mummy is standing in front of the door. She looks sad. “James, please.” 

Daddy shoves her to one side. She sees the look of pain on Mummy's face as she bangs against the wall and nearly falls over. “I need to get out of here," says Daddy, his voice tight and dangerous, "or I’m going to do something I regret.” 

“James!” Mummy shouts. Her voice sounds like crying. 

Daddy slams the door behind him, making Tilly jump and one of the coats in the hallway fall off its peg. Mummy stands watching at the door, rubbing her shoulder where it hit the wall. Tilly can hear her struggling to breathe. Tilly can hardly breathe herself. 

 _This is all your fault_. She's caused this, she knows it. Everything was fine until she broke Great Aunt Margaret's figurine and then lied about it: because not telling the truth is the same as a lie, really. The image of Mummy's face smashing into pieces flashes up again, and she runs downstairs. 

"Mummy," she says, hugging her. Mummy is shaking. 

"Tilly, what are you doing up?" She says, turning around and hugging her back, hard. 

Tilly burrows into her body, as though by holding her as tightly as possible she can stop her breaking. "I'm scared."  

"It's all right sweetheart, don’t be scared," Mummy tells her, but Tilly knows better.  _This is all your fault_. She broke the little bride, and then she lied about it, and because of her something terrible is going to happen to Mummy.  

Mummy comes and lies down in her bed with her. Tilly clutches her in the dark, pressing her face into the warm groove of her neck. Mummy doesn't realise: she doesn't know that Tilly has put a curse one her. Maybe, she thinks, just maybe, if she stays close enough to Mummy, she can protect her from whatever evil lies out there, waiting to break her. 

Daddy's voice rings in her ears.  _This is all your fault_. 


	3. Josh's Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh was a lovely character to write, because he's so relentlessly resilient. He's too young to understand danger or death: the world is just a constant source of excitement for him. On occasion, I shamelessly mined that outlook for pathos. Here's Josh's viewpoint on what happens immediately after the events in chapter 3 of _Whatever the lady wants_ , when James returns home from an almighty bender and attacks Nicola.

Josh wriggles into his clothes. It's a bit difficult doing it with his seatbelt on, but Superman can get changed while whizzing on the spot - which is much harder - so he knows it must be possible.  

In the middle seat Tilly is complaining "I don't want to get changed in the car," and Ella is saying "Just do it Tils. Don't you want to be ready to take Buster for a walk when we get to Granny's house?" Her voice is much kinder than the one she usually uses when she's telling people what to do. Mummy hasn't said very much since they got in the car - probably because she's busy driving and coming up with a plan. 

The aliens have taken Daddy again. 

He thinks it must have happened on Friday night. He was asleep, but Tilly told him that she had heard shouting and saw Daddy push Mummy. Then he disappeared. Josh couldn't go to the rugby on Saturday because there was no one to take him. Real Daddy wouldn't have missed that: he loves rugby. 

A car overtakes them, beeping loudly. The man in the passenger seat shouts something at Mummy and makes a rude sign with his hand as it passes. Their car breaks sharply and stops. Josh laughs. Tilly screams and grabs at her seatbelt. In the mirror he can see that Mummy has her eyes closed. 

"Maybe you should take a break, Mum," says Ella. Mummy doesn't say anything, and she doesn't open her eyes. "You could get a coffee, and ring Granny and Grandad to let them know we're coming," Ella suggests. 

This gets Josh's attention. If they're going somewhere that sells coffee, it will also sell food. "I'm really,  _really_ hungry Mummy," he tells her. "I haven't had any breakfast." 

"Nor have I," says Tilly. She sounds like she might be going to cry. 

Mummy doesn't move for a moment. Then she takes a big breath and opens her eyes. She turns round to look at them. "Shall we find somewhere to eat?" 

"Yes!" Josh says. Tilly nods. 

"Okay, let's look for a café." Mummy's mouth smiles but her eyes don't. "Tilly," she says, turning back around and starting to drive again, "it's your turn to pick a CD, what do you want to listen to?" 

* * *

They didn't have breakfast at home because they had to leave in a hurry: one of the aliens had got in. Josh was woken up very early in the morning by Mummy shaking his shoulder. "Get up, sweetheart," she had said, lifting him out of bed before his eyes were even open properly. He could hear strange noises coming from somewhere in the house: shouting and banging. Tilly was already awake. She was putting clothes in a rucksack. 

"What's happening?" Josh had asked. 

Mummy was breathing fast and there was blood on her neck. That's why he realised that she must have been fighting. He never would have guessed that his Mummy _could_ fight, because she's scared of a lot of things, but he supposed that UNIT must want their secret agents to seem normal so they can surprise the bad guys. "We're going out," she said, helping him put a top on over his pyjamas. 

There was a very loud crashing sound – like a window or a mirror being smashed. Mummy zipped up his top so hard that it pinched his neck, and bent down in front of him. "Now listen to me," she said, reaching for Tilly's hand and putting it in his. "You two go downstairs, put your shoes on, and get straight in the car. Do do you understand?" 

"Are UNIT coming?" he asked. 

"This isn't a game, Josh," she told him. 

"I know!" UNIT is very serious. If they came, the Doctor might even come. 

"Get in the car and wait for me. Don't come back in the house. Can you do that, Tilly?" Mummy asked. 

Tilly nodded and squeezed his hand so hard it made his fingers hurt. She looked scared. She doesn't know karate, so she was probably frightened in case she met the aliens. 

"Good girl," Mummy said. She walked over to the bedroom door and listened. There was still banging and shouting, but it wasn't as loud as before. "Go now," she told them, opening the door. "Straight downstairs!" 

Tilly ran across the landing, still holding his hand tightly. As they passed, Josh realised that the noises were coming from Mummy's bedroom, but Tilly was holding him too hard for him to go and have a look. At the top of the stairs he glanced backwards and saw Mummy running up the other set of stairs, towards Ella's room. Then there was another crash in Mummy's bedroom, like wood breaking, and Tilly pulled him down the stairs behind her. 

Ella got into the car a little while after they did. She was wearing pyjama bottoms and a hoodie, and her face was white. She made them both put on their seatbelts, then put her arm around Tilly. 

"Did you hear the alien?" Josh asked her. 

"That wasn't an alien, Joshy," she said. "It was Dad." 

Josh doesn't know how she can believe that after all the evidence he's told her about. Maybe she was just pretending because she didn't want Tilly to be scared. 

Then Mummy had got in the car. She had changed out of her pyjamas but she still had blood on her. She started the car and drove away so fast that the wheels made a squealing noise, like on TV. When Josh looked back at the house he saw that she had forgotten to close the front door. Or maybe she had left it open on purpose - for when UNIT arrived. 

* * *

All that has already happened by the time Mummy finds a café that is open first thing on a Sunday morning, so he's starving. He wonders if she might let him have two breakfasts because he's had to wait so long. 

They get out of the car and Ella locks the door, because when Mummy tries she drops the keys. Her hands are shaking. 

It's not a very nice café. The café near their house has lots of different types of cake, and they make homemade milkshakes. This café has chairs that are fixed to the floor and instead of a display cabinet, there's just the names of the food written over the counter. 

Mummy has turned her handbag out over a table and is pushing all her things around. A Freddo falls on the floor. Josh puts it in his pocket for later. 

"What's wrong?" asks Ella. 

"I can't find my phone," says Mummy. She has a special work phone that he's not allowed to play with because it's a secret Government phone. She must want to ring Mr Tucker and tell him to send UNIT to catch the alien at their house. She pauses for a moment, like she's remembering something, and shudders. Then says to Ella "It's still in my bedroom. Can I borrow yours, sweetheart?" 

Ella looks embarrassed. "I don’t have it any more. It got lost at school." 

Josh expects Mummy to be really mad at this, but she gives Ella a funny look and touches her shoulder. "Never mind," she says. "I'll get you a new one." 

"That's not fair!" he protests. "When I lost my scooter you said I had to have Tilly's old one, even though it's yellow!" 

Mummy looks at him as though she'd forgotten he was there. She pushes her things back into her handbag. "I think we all need something to eat before we do anything else. What is it they say – an army marches on its stomach?" 

That's a silly saying, because an army marches on its feet, but he doesn't point this out because he's still hoping for two breakfasts. 

Tilly pulls Mummy's hand. "You're bleeding," she says, pointing at her shoulder. 

Mummy looks down and sees the blood on her jumper. "Oh Christ," she says, trying to cover it up with her hand. "I can't go to Granny and Grandad's looking like this." He doesn't know why not – it's cool to look like you've been in a fight. 

"Here," Mummy says, handing her bag to Ella, "will you order while I go and fix this? Make sure that Josh has something savoury." 

That's not what Josh has been hoping for at all: he wants a donut, or maybe some ice cream. But in the end it's fine. Ella orders him a bacon and fried egg sandwich and lets him put as much ketchup on it as he wants. Mummy frowns at his plate when she comes back, but she doesn't say anything. He thinks today's going to be one of the days where she lets him do things that he's not normally allowed to do. 

"The lady at the counter let me use her phone," she says, stirring sugar into her coffee. There's a wet patch on her jumper but you can hardly see the blood any more. "Grandad says he's going to take you to see some baby goats at the farm this afternoon. How does that sound?" 

"Are you coming?" asks Tilly. She's sitting on Mummy's lap, even though she's 10 now. 

"Yes, I thought we could all go." 

"Are we staying the night with them?" asks Ella. 

Mummy looks at her and shakes her head. "We'll have to go back home this evening. Josh and Tilly have school tomorrow, and I have to go to work." 

It doesn't matter. UNIT will have got rid of the alien by the time they've been to the farm. "I want to see the goats," Josh says. "Can we feed them?" 

She nods. "Yes, I'm sure you'll be able to." 

Josh takes a big bite of his sandwich. A blob of ketchup and egg yolk falls on his jeans. Mummy notices but doesn't say anything. He knows then that this is going to be a brilliant day. 


	4. What Katie did

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I found it difficult writing from Katie's point of view (which is why it's taken so long to edit this last section). She's just at that point where she's starting to question the environment she grew up in and realise that it my not be normal, but still young enough that she has very limited options for what to do about it. That's quite hard to capture, and I find that when I read back Katie's POV it sounds a lot like Nicola's. Which is a roundabout way of saying: bear in mind that this is a deleted scene when you read it - there are reasons why it didn't make the final cut! Set during chapter 4 of _Whatever the lady wants_.

Katie gets the bus to the top of Highgate Hill, then carries her overnight bag and portfolio the short walk to her house. She'd spent the weekend with her friend Lizzy and her parents at their cottage in the Cotswolds, and then got the train straight to Lambeth on Monday morning. Much to Dad’s disgust, she’s doing an art course at Morley College. She has classes in the mornings then free time most afternoons to work on her projects. Much to Mum's relief, she’s taking the whole thing much more seriously than she did with her GCSEs.

She finds herself dragging her feet as she gets closer to home. It's not that she doesn't want to go home: not exactly. It's more that she never knows what she's going to walk into when she steps through the front door any more. It's always been chaotic: you can't expect otherwise in a household of four children and two working parents - especially when one of the parents is as neurotic as Mum and the other is as unreliable as Dad. But lately it's been different. She's not sure whether she just sees more because she's getting older, or whether something's actually changed. She can't even pinpoint when it started; she had first _noticed_ it when that article about Dad was published, but when she looks back it has been going on for longer - maybe since Christmas? Maybe since Mum started her new job? It's as though the ground under their feet has been gradually shifting and cracking for months, and now the cracks are getting so big that she's starting to notice them. 

As soon as she opens the front door she realises she’s not alone in the house, even though it's only two thirty in the afternoon. There are too many pairs of shoes in the hall, and the sound of the radio drifts down the corridor. She goes through to the kitchen and finds Magda peeling potatoes. "Magda, why are you here?" 

Magda doesn't look up as she replies: "Your sister is not going to school."  

"Which one?" It can be difficult to interpret Magda's economical pronouncements.

"Ella." 

"Is she sick?" 

Magda shrugs in a way that suggests that by Polish standards Ella would definitely not be considered sick, but that she cannot rule out the English viewing the situation differently. "I do not think so. She will have tutor next week." 

Her heart sinks. Has Ella been excluded? She thought that bullying stuff had just been a one off – a misunderstanding that got blown out of proportion. "Where is she?" 

"In bedroom." 

She drops her bag and portfolio in her room on her way to Ella’s. Someone’s been in her room over the weekend she realises as she puts her bag down. Mum, judging by the fact that her clothes have been picked up off the floor and sit folded in a pile on the dressing table, and the bed is neatly made up with fresh linen. She goes next door and finds Ella sitting on her bed, watching music videos on YouTube. 

"What are you doing at home?" she asks her.

“Oh hi Katie, nice to see you too,” Ella says, pausing her video.

"Sorry, hi. Magda says you're not going back to school – have you been excluded?" 

Ella shakes her head. She looks embarrassed. "No, Mum said I didn't have to go back. She's going to get me into Lady Margaret's for next year."

Lady Margaret's is the independent school Katie went to – the one to which cabinet ministers apparently can't send their children on pain of sacking. "Why, what did you do?" 

"Nothing!" protests Ella. "Why does everyone always assume things are my fault!?" 

Katie feels a bit guilty. Ella might have been difficult recently, but until she was forced to leave her friends and go to a school where half the classrooms were portacabins with a bunch of chavs, she hadn't been a troublemaker. "Well what happened, then? Mum wouldn't just take you out of school in the middle of term."

Ella flushes and looks down at her bedspread. "She found out that some girls have been bullying me." 

"You've been bullied?" she says, surprised. But she believes it, because Ella's lip wobbles as she nods in confirmation. "Wow, I bet Dad went ballistic. Did he go to the school? They must have shat themselves." 

Ella shakes her head. "He already knew. He doesn't care." 

Katie sits down on the bed. "Dad knew?" 

"I met him one day after school when they were chasing me. He said it was my fault for starting it." Ella's blinking back tears now. "But I didn't start it - they just hate me." 

Katie reaches out and rubs her leg. "Poor Els." It sounds like exactly the kind of thing Dad would say – like when she'd told him she wanted to go to art college and he'd said he hadn't wasted tens of thousand pounds in school fees so she could mess around with paint for four years then get a job at Costa. But Ella’s only twelve and this is more serious than whether she studies art or economics. "He's such a twat. What did Mum do when she found out he knew and hadn’t done anything about it?" 

She shakes her head. "I didn't tell her,"  she says in a small voice.

"Ella! You can't let him get away with treating you like that." 

Ella looks up, her face white. "I couldn't tell her this weekend." 

There's a sick look in her eyes that makes Katie’s stomach clench. "Why not? What happened this weekend?" 

Ella reaches for Simba, her ratty old toy lion, and strokes his mane as she speaks. "I'm not sure what it was about, but Mum and Dad had an argument on Friday night and then he just disappeared – he didn’t come back until Sunday morning." 

"Where did he go?" 

Ella shrugs, still stroking Simba. "I don't know, but when he came back he went psycho. Mum woke us up and took us to Granny and Grandad's. She didn't even let us get dressed first – we had to get changed in the car. And—" her voice catches. 

"What?" asks Katie. She doesn't want to push her, but she also really wants to know. 

Ella shakes her head, squeezing her eyes closed. "She was trying to pretend that nothing happened but--" She falls silent for a moment, then opens her eyes and looks directly at Katie. "She was _so_ scared. She couldn't stop shaking and she was bleeding – on her shoulder. There was blood on her jumper."  

It must have been bad, because Ella looks frightened just talking about it. "You should have called me," she says, guilty that while all this had been happening she'd been hanging out with Lizzie in the Cotswolds and _relieved_ to be away from her family for a few days. 

Ella shrugs again. "You couldn't have done anything." She sounds resigned. Katie recognises that tone of voice, and that closed, inward expression: it's the same one Mum gets when Dad's been a total bellend and she's trying to convince herself to put up with it rather than calling him out. 

Katie’s starting to get sick of putting up with Dad. At the weekend, Lizzy had told her dad – Dave – that it was his turn to do the washing up. Katie had steeled herself for an explosion because if she’d spoken to Dad like that he would have got angry and ranted about the fact that he was the breadwinner and she should show him some respect. But Dave had just said ‘fair cop’ and put on a pair of pink rubber gloves to make them laugh. Dave would never have told Lizzy that it was her fault she was being bullied, or scared her so badly that she nearly cried just talking about it _. Most_ people’s dads wouldn’t do that.

She pulls Ella into a hug. “I’m sorry you’ve had such a rubbish time. It’s not fair. No wonder you’ve been such a pain in the arse recently.”

“I’m just glad I don’t have to go to that school any more,” Ella says, hugging her back.

“Yeah, I don’t blame you. I didn’t love Lady Margaret’s but at least all the classrooms had heating.”

“And the other girls won’t hate me for being posh.”

“Oh mate, by Lady Margaret standards you’ll be the chav! Your Mum’s only a Cabinet Minister – practically a commoner.”

Ella giggles, and Katie realises it’s the most relaxed and happy she’s seen her looking in months. “I’m going to Highgate Cemetery to take some photos for college,” Katie tells her. “D’you want to come?”

“To the cemetery?” says Ella, looking dubious.

“We could stop at the ice cream bar on the way. My treat,” Katie promises.

This offer seems to appeal to her more. “Okay. But can you tell Magda? She said she’d only look after me this week if I’m good, and I don’t want her to think I’m sneaking out.”

Katie grins. “I’ll tell her that we’re going to learn about Karl Marx, she’ll love that.”

As they make their way downstairs, Ella stops on the first floor landing. “Look at this,” she says, opening their parents’ bedroom door.

Katie bites her lip as she surveys the destruction. It’s no wonder Mum had been scared, she thinks. No corner of the room is unscathed: the drawers have been emptied out of the dresser onto the floor, the mirror in the wardrobe door is smashed, the dressing table chair lies in several pieces on the other side of the room, and the door to the en suite is hanging off its hinges. A perfume bottle must have been smashed, because the air is cloyingly thick with scent.

“I can’t believe one person did all this,” she says, looking around.

“Mum slept in your room last night,” Ella tells her.

“I can see why she wanted to get you lot out of the house.” Whatever her parents had argued about, this hadn’t just been a common or garden row. “I’ll speak to her this evening,” she promises Ella, closing the door. “Check she’s okay.”

“She won’t tell you anything,” says Ella.

* * *

Ella’s right, of course.

Mum doesn’t get home from work until after 7. Katie finds her in the kitchen, examining the contents of the pan Magda had prepared earlier. “Hello love,” she says as Katie walks into the kitchen. “How was your weekend with Lizzy?”

“Yeah, all right,” she tells her. “How were things here?”

Mum’s face remains deliberately neutral. “Oh fine. I took the kids to Granny and Grandad’s yesterday – I thought we could all do with a change of scene.”

“A change of scene from Dad?” asks Katie, leaning against the counter next to Mum. Up close she sees the dark shadows under her eyes and the tense set of her shoulders.

“From the city,” says Mum tightly. “Josh needed space to run around and burn off some energy. Did Magda say what this is?” she asks, prodding the contents of the casserole dish with a wooden spoon. At her wrist, a purple bruise pokes out from under the sleeve of her blouse.

“Some kind of beef and potato stew.”

Mum pulls a face. “Not very summery.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Katie reassures her. “Are you okay, Mum?”

She gives Katie an unconvincing smile. “Yes, of course. Just tired.”

“Are you sure? What happened to your wrist?”

“Oh it's nothing - it doesn’t even hurt. What do you want with this? Shall I cook some vegetables? Or maybe heat up some bread?”

“Mum!” Katie protests, frustrated by her total avoidance. But, with spectacularly inconvenient timing, Tilly chooses that moment to come into the kitchen and ask if she can help with dinner and she can’t ask any more after that, because the poor kid’s anxious enough already. Katie leaves them re-heating the stew and laying the table together.

It’s clear to her, watching her parents over dinner, that something’s off between them. They can’t look each other in the eye, and when Dad offers to help Mum put Josh and Tilly to bed she tells him sharply that she can manage by herself. The whole atmosphere sets her teeth on edge. She needs to talk to someone about it – someone who understands her family and won’t dismiss the sense of unease that has been escalating in her ever since she got home.

Aunty Jean answers on the second ring. “Nicola, finally. I know you’ve got a lot on, but would it kill you to send a text if you’re too busy to call?”

“It’s not Nicola, it’s Katie.”

Aunty Jean’s tone immediately switches from brisk to concerned. “ Excuse me,” she says to someone in the background, “I have to take this call.” Katie hears footsteps at the other end of the line and a door shutting, and then: “Katie, is everything all right?”

Katie takes a deep breath. She’d wanted to talk to Aunty Jean because she’s so calm and sensible and she never talks down to them, but now that she has her on the line she’s not sure what she wants to say.

When Katie doesn’t answer, Aunty Jean says “I’m glad you rang. Your mother’s been avoiding me, which usually means she’s unhappy and doesn’t want to admit it. How are things at home?”

It’s this openness, and this disarmingly simple question, that gives her a place to start. “Not very good,” she admits.


	5. The Innocent project

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the same time as The Thick of It was being shown, Rebecca Front was also starring as Chief Superintendent Jean Innocent in Lewis, an Inspector Morse spinoff. I developed a headcannon that Jean and Nicola are sisters. I wrote a lot of Jean scenes for the series - mainly two-handers between her and Nicola. None of them made the final cut: partly because I thought the crossover between audiences was too small, and partly because it felt self-indulgent. 
> 
> However, to say thank you for sticking it out this far, here's a short scene I wrote between Malcolm and Jean. It's set towards the end of _Then we came to an end_ , when Malcolm is in hospital. In my first draft of that fic, Jean had been staying with her for the weekend to help out with Josh's birthday party, and comes to the hospital with Nicola and the kids. This conversation takes place between Malcolm and Jean when Nicola steps out of the room.

At first glance, Nicola and her sister could be twins. On closer examination he sees that Jean carries herself with more confidence: where Nicola is tense and perpetually flustered, Jean is composed and considered. Though the two are the same height and build, Jean somehow seems to occupy more space.   

She is observing him coolly, and he has the sensation of being the subject of close scrutiny. She’s a senior police officer, he dimly recalls. When he’d first read this in Nicola’s background file, the idea of anyone related to Nicola holding such a position had seemed improbable. Now that he meets Jean, it’s entirely plausible.  

Jean crosses her arms but doesn’t reduce the intensity of her gaze. “Nicola’s told me that you’ve been trying to help her manage James.”  She stresses the _trying_. It’s impossible to tell from her stern expression whether it is Malcolm’s help, Nicola’s unwillingness to be helped, or James that she finds lacking.  

“He’s a fuckin’ cunt,” he tells her firmly.  

Jean raises an eyebrow. “I’ve never had a high opinion of him, but from what I’ve learnt recently that’s putting it mildly.”  

Malcolm barks out a laugh that turns into a groan as his fractured ribs protest. He can imagine that Jean's subjected her sister to some rather detailed interrogation recently. He wonders exactly how much about her marriage Nicola had been keeping secret from her family before he splashed it all over the national press. “From what _I’ve_ learnt recently, he’ll give Nic’la a quick divorce unless he wants to land himself in a metric fucktonne of shit,” he tells her when he’s regained control of his breathing.  

Jean purses her lips. “It’s better that I don’t know the details of whatever scheme you've cooked up, but here’s my card. If there’s anything you’re worried about, call me. Nicola’s hopeless at realising when she’s out of her depth.”  

He takes the card from her. _Chief Superintendent, Oxfordshire CID_ : she's a very senior police officer indeed. He wonders if she's ever thought of running for Parliament. “Aye, all righ’.”  

Jean leans closer and says in a light, reasonable tone: “And remember this: if you ever hurt my sister, I will break you so badly that you’ll _wish_ you’d got away with just broken ribs.”  

He’d laugh again if it didn’t hurt so fucking much. Instead he just looks at her solemnly. “I’ve go’ no intention of hurtin’ Nic’la.”   

She nods curtly. “Good. I just wanted to make sure we understood each other.”  

He allows himself a wry smile as he watches Jean depart. It seems the women in this family are full of surprises.  


End file.
